Ironman USA Lake Placid : Official Thread (Page 117)

...and today's ride puts me at 656.  Woot!

Knee is doing a lot better.  Bounced back fast from the subluxation.  Running is coming back very nicely.  Got in a solid 5 miler yesterday and followed it up with another 7 this morning.  Not much pain, and swelling is pretty much gone.  I can see both kneecaps again. 

Missed out on a few weeks of longer running, but that allowed me to spend more time in the saddle and to crush the 600 mile bike challenge.  It'll all be good come race day in July.  If anything, the extra focus on PT and such is making me stronger/more resilient, which all helps too.

Congrats to all the 600-Mile Club Kids!!  I hope to be there tomorrow morning, well before noon.

Again, I simply posted that for me, this was my personal goal and people latched onto it.  I never challenged anyone else, only myself.  Keeping this thought in mind, with the the thought that everyone has different limiters and trains at different levels and speeds ... I am going to suggest we do all of our own Personal Goals in May.  But the thing is, you have to post it on this thread which may keep you more honest about meeting it!!  And we can all update on Monday morning if we're on target or not.  And this not a macho, I can do more than you contest.  We've had MORE THAN ENOUGH EGO in this thread.  Let's make our own, personal, realistic Swimming Biking and Running goals for May and post them.  And just like everyone who gets to 600 is a Winner ; everyone who hits their May Personal Goal numbers is a Winner.  First one to hit them, like Fred did, will get a smiley face and a gold star. 

So who's in for the May Challenge!!!?? 

Okay, I'll go first ...wow, May is four full weeks and two bonus days!! Schweet!!  Oh, and you can do time, or distance, whatever you want.  I'll even up the ante with weight.  My current wieght being 172 lbs.

By May 31st:

lose 4 pounds (168 lbs.)

Swim:  30,000 meters

Bike: 650 miles

Run: 101 miles

That's what I was planning - Stick to my swim and bike plan and not miss a workout while slowly working back into the run. 

Mike, since you asked for my thoughts regarding this topic here they are:

First of all let’s define the concept metabolic efficiency; this is nothing more that improving your body’s ability (working muscles) to utilize fuel for energy (to produce ATP) as effective as possible. Since the main sources for fuel are carbs-glycogen (store in the liver and muscles) and fats (Free fatty acids and muscle triglycerides) while proteins provide ‘some’ energy at a lesser degree depending the circumstances (severe carb depravation or ultra-distance racing).

Understanding this is crucial because you now know you basically have two primarily sources of fuel that you have to manage when exercising. To complicate things a bit our body have limited storage capacity for glycogen while we have ‘unlimited’ capacity for fat (not really but we store much more fat and carbs).

Depending on fitness/weight/age an athlete can store around ~500 gr of glycogen (~2000 Kcal) which roughly 400gr are store in the muscles and the rest in the liver. Fat stores on the other hand are virtually unlimited, that is a 150 pound athlete with 10% body fat has 15 pounds available!

In order to improve your metabolic fitness, that is your ability to go faster and/or longer you can either: 1) improve your body’s capacity to store more carbs, 2) reduce your reliance on carbs for fuel and/or 3) increase your ability to use fat for fuel*. All these are not mutually exclusive and all increase at different degrees based on two key things: training load AND regular everyday diet.

What you have to understand is that your metabolic fitness is a function of your training/daily diet while your metabolic efficiency is more a function of your exertion intensity and fueling before/while exercising. That is, the more you train specifically for your main event the more you’ll produce the necessary adaptations to grow fitter allowing you to improve the 3 points mentioned above. That in turn will allow you to use energy more efficiently when training/racing but also how fast you go through your fuel reserves and what percentage of fuel mix your body uses (carsb vs fats) will also be affected by your immediate diet.

For instance if you consume more fat in your daily diet it will result in your body using more fat for fuel when you are training/racing however and this is VERY important; the increase in fat oxidation induced by diet doesn't result in an increase in performance! You do want to achieve that through an increase in your metabolic fitness (IOW through your training). Since diet impacts what fuel source your body uses for exercise this one of the reasons why I think metabolic testing for athletes in general is a waste of time.

Anyway, with all that out of the way you have to keep two things in mind: you have to focus at keeping your carbs stores full as much as possible**, and as long as you have a healthy balance diet you’ll always have plenty of fat for fuel.

Glycogen store in your muscles can get depleted over a few days of training while the one available in the liver within a training session (‘hitting’ the wall). For that reason prior big training sessions or races you have to focus on topping your carbs reserves; for the one store in your muscles just by having a balanced diet consuming carbs should be enough. The key point is that you’ll need more than a pre-race meal to top this storage off.

OTOH, the one store in your liver is what you have to be more proactive at replenishing before/while and after training. For that reason is important to fuel but since roughly each person can store around ~100gr (400 Kcal) then you can see consuming much more before a long ride/race might not necessarily provide any benefit and it might result in GI distress.

IOW, eating days and 3> hrs before a training/racing will focus on maximizing glycogen storage on muscles. Eating <1 hrs before training, while training and after training is focused at maximizing/replenishing glycogen storage on your liver, all of course in general. While training your focus is to replenish some of your carbs storage but evidence suggest your body can’t process more than 1-1.5 gr of CHO x minute, hence in general your body won’t be able to absorb more than 60-75gr of CHO x hour (240-300 Kcal) +/- depending on fitness, weight, age, temperature, etc.

Jorge’s simple general ‘rules’ for fueling:

·          Daily diet depending on fitness, training load, racing goals and weight goals: 40-60% CHO: 20-30% Protein: 20-25% fats (good fats)

·          2-3 hrs before training window – 1-2gr of CHO x KgBW (Kg of body weight).

o         Sessions < 2 hrs close to 1gr, session 4> hrs or very intense (85> % of threshold power/pace) close to 2 gr.

·          <2 hrs before training window (if you missed the above window) – 0.5 to 1 gr of CHO x KgBW.  If you don’t miss window above only consume 15-24oz sports drink or water+gel

o         Sessions < 2 hrs close to 0.5gr, session 4> hrs or very intense (85> % of threshold power/pace) close to 1 gr.

·          During training window:

o         Short/easy session (<60min): 0.3-0.5gr CHO x KgBW

o         Intense/short session (<60min): 0.5-0.8gr CHO x KgBW

o         Steady/mid session (1-3hrs): 0.8-0.1gr CHO x KgBW

o         Intense/mid session (1-3hrs): 1-1.2gr CHO x KgBW

o         Long/intense session (4> hrs): 1-1.5gr CHO x KgBW

·          Post training, 30 min window: 0.5-1.1gr CHO plus 0.1-0.3gr of protein x KgBW depending on duration/intensity of session (goal - stabilize glucose levels in the liver, improve recovery processes, etc)

In the end nutrition is a very individual thing and that’s why until recently I’ve become more involved with my athletes regarding this. It took me a while not necessarily to recognize its importance but more to feel comfortable addressing it (it is taking lots of studying/reading and i am far from it  ). For that reason I treat each as a case by case basis and avoid following rigid ‘rules’. In the end you have to test all this during your training and if you are proactive at documenting it, you’ll find what works for you in no time. Usually the simpler you can make it the better it will work and the easier it will be for you to stick to it. (KISS it !)

* There is a big debate as the best way to optimize your body’s ability to oxidize fat for fuel however the available evidence suggests a balanced training load (some short, some long, some easy and some hard) provides the best mix to accomplish this plus other very important physiological processes for endurance athletes. I'll post more on this when I get back to posting on BT regularly...

** There is some evidence that through certain times in your training plan for a few intense training sessions, working out in a controlled glycogen semi-depleted stage you can maximize your metabolic efficiency by relying more on fat for fuel. But doing so constantly will produce negative adaptations no to mention result in injury/sickness.

Awesome Job Monty!!  I just hit 613 today. 

James - sorry to see you were sick.  You definitely get a bogey for your sick days.

Bryan has an excellent point, that we should stick to our plans.  Perhaps we could look at our plan for the month and figure out a rough SBR number of where our training will put us!  Which is kind of what I did.

Anyone RACING this weekend? 

I'm doing a Half Marathon Sunday.

James, you are unbelievable.  You are the man.  607 miles in three weeks basically.  Very impressive!

I feel like the love is gone from this thread.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beGjncfEPt8